(This is a fantasy story, and I've adopted some medieval kind of things, as well as a few modern ones. Just remember to not shoehorn them into a particular era and you'll be fine. It's placed in somewhere like England, it's a monarchy, and it's sexist, but not racist. Oh and, I do a lot of describing clothes and hair, but bear with me alright)
*
I've decided to set the facts straight. My sister, Marianne, might not mind the outrageous lies that were spread, and everyone believed, but I just can't keep silent.
I've always been that way. I got a fair amount of the ruler from my teachers – little girls are to be seen and not heard, after all. They preferred Marianne, so quiet, writing poems on scraps of cloth. She often dozed off in class, but then, the teachers didn't pay any attention to the girls, concentrating on the boys who could make something of themselves.
Most people thought she was a snob and an airhead, never talking to anyone much, often lost in her own head. Only those who knew her knew that she was the sweetest person one could ever meet, loyal and caring. She was older but I was always bossier and more outgoing. When I was a kid I used to take on bullies and got into fights a lot, the despair of our mother. She was certainly glad when I traded in physical for verbal.
Our mother was a strong woman. She married bad, but then she married again, and much smarter. John was an asshole as well, but with one important difference; he was rich.
You see, my mother ran away with a local bad boy – and also local loser, but then she didn't realize that at the time, madly in love with at the time as she was – and got disowned from her rich and snotty family. Marianne was about five when he left. Our mother then took quick stock of her life, and then returned to high society to find a husband of two qualities; rich, and sickly. I probably don't need to mention that her belief in true love fairly crushed.
So she met John, who, with his copious amounts of money (inherited, and increased by his knack of finding out stuff about people and generously allowing them to pay him to silence several times a year) and fondness of smoking, drinking and hunting – often simultaneously – was a perfect candidate, walking death trap to himself that he was. Sure enough, only eight months after they married (Mother got to him
just
in time
) he fell off his horse while hunting – and drinking and puffing away – in a village men hunt kinda thing. He was drinking the same ale as everyone else – just more, and there were dozens of witnesses, so there was never any suspect of foul play, surprising considering his side income, but nobody was sad to see him go. Well, except for one person.
He had a daughter, Portia. She didn't see much of him growing up, raised mostly by her maids, but she was nevertheless quite infested in his views of women; "dumb no good twits only good for one thing" (nice contradiction, huh?). She had adored her father, and while she was always polite like the little lady she was, quiet, respective and obedient to elders, she hated my mother. She didn't much like me either, a definite bad girl, but the feeling was mutual. She was a doormat, and the fetch girl for the popular girl – and actually just as bad as me, only more diplomatic about it – Amanda.
It happened around the time we had just hit puberty – we were twelve, to clarify. Tough time, with guys and hair and dresses, not to mention girl cunning. The thing is, women are meaner then men. Men are supposed to be, but things are much simpler with them. And with girls, before teens, it's often the same. But then we hit puberty, become women, everything changes. We fight like women. It's much scarier then men.
